BLOW THE MAN DOWN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 725, 5 June 1953, Page 16

BLOW THE MAN DOWN

ITH microphones wrapped _ in cheesecloth and artists and audience wrapped in all available clothing, an NZBS concert party recently recorded a variety programme aboard ship in a 70 m.p.h, gale. The party was conducting an audience participation show entitled Time to Sing aboard the liner Rangitata in Wellington Harbour, and the gale was that which recently carried away sections of the Eastbourne foreshore. The captain, several of his officers, and a number "of ‘the crew could not attend the show: not because they didn’t want to, but because the rising gale required their presence on deck. Extra lines were put out-the most Wellington’s harbourmaster had ever seen on one ship-but still the wind forced the vessel as much as ten feet away from the wharf. On the wharf edge a technician in the NZBS mobile recording unit sat ready to cut his cables should the liner leave the scene unexpectedly. The recording van itself was perhaps too well sprung. It was said to be rolling more than the ship. But on the Rangitata’s B-deck flat the show-in the best theatrical traditionwent on. Sheets of stretched canvas broke the force of the wind, but enough found its way in to ensure that scripts and sheets of music disappeared at the most inconvenient moments. Several sheets of music, together with the double bass player’s hat, went for a sea voyage

on their own account. The pianist, John Parkin — clad in dinner jacket, tennis sweater, overcoat and hat-missed his cue at one point through getting two fingers jammed in the thumb-hole of his mittens. Singers missed the revelation of their own art by being unable to hear their voices for the wind. The technician, hearing only the howl of the

gale and an occasional grumble from the bull fiddle, wondered if he’d got a recording at all. However, the audience of 150 merchant seamen joined in the songs, and the show went with a will rivalling that of the southerly buster outside, Listeners will hear the record-ing-complete with storm sound effects -from NZBS stations later in the year.